


ain't nothing we can do to protect you

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Secret Skraw 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5088326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a character study. Whoever said a character couldn't be five people?</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't nothing we can do to protect you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galfridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/gifts).



> Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of _some_ dream. – Edgar Allen Poe, “The Pit and the Pendulum”

_page of cups (blue, you sit so pretty)_

"What if," Blue says to Persephone, "I'm too young for my true love? I mean, how am I supposed to _know_?"

Persephone gives her a misty look through the steam of her peppermint tea. "We've all seen it," she says.

"What if," Blue persists, "it doesn't mean _instantly_? What if I kiss him and then he dies in bed of old age ninety years later?"

"Your insecurities are clouding your mind."

"That sage smudge stick Calla used earlier is clouding my mind," Blue says.

The raven boys are yet to cloud her mind, but they'll be in it soon enough.

 

_xiii: death (is not the end)_

"I read that the Death card was only symbolic."

Gansey doesn't need to listen to the noncommittal noises coming from the assembled family members to know that they do not necessarily agree with Adam's assessment.

All he has to do is look at the stricken face of their pizza waitress

( _Blue, her name is Blue_ )

to see that sometimes it isn’t symbolic at all.

Psychopomps are guides through transitions, particularly from life into death. They’re usually birds, if they’re not deities. His should probably be Chainsaw.

Instead it’s this strange girl with her oversized sweaters, peculiar skirts, and compelling features.

 

_xii: the hanged man (such is life)_

Noah wonders if there's any point seeking a psychic's assistance when he's already dead.

A psychic's _assistant_ , though...

Blue might not be psychic herself, but she's pretty handy at shuffling and, since Noah is not always corporeal enough to do so, she does it on his behalf. It's an acceptable compromise between the living and the dead.

He is sometimes intentionally incorporeal just so that she can shuffle and cut and deal the cards for him.

If he's honest, he would rather have her by-the-book, mundane interpretations rather than one of the older women to look at him and _know_.

 

_xviii: the moon (m-o-o-n spells graywaren)_

Ronan knows that he's safe from Blue's kiss-curse-thing because she will never love him. Oh, she'll love him the way she does all of them: fiercely and defensively. The way they all love each other. But there's no chance of a crush or an infatuation.

It's not _her_ kisses he thinks about anyway.

He sleeps better now Chainsaw's a little older. When she makes noises at him they're not so needy, but soothing.

He sleeps better with the unthreatening ruffle of her feathers as she preens herself beside the bed and the soft patter of spring rain on the roof.

 

_i: the magician (longs to see)_

Adam experiments with seeing Ronan the way Ronan sees him. The way he, Adam, sees Blue. Even the way Maura and the Grey Man see each other. It's like watching marionettes dance around each other; the strings—his thoughts—get tangled.

He wants to kiss Blue; he thinks he is halfway toward being in love with her already.

Ronan is—

Ronan is a constant.

Adam's just not quite sure of _what_. A constant thorn in his side, maybe. A constant clinging burr that, instead of soothing his mind the way that Blue (mostly) does, inflames it.

Maybe he _can_ think that way.

*****

They are a quintych; while they are each whole in themselves they make more sense, now, in the context of one another.

There is a centerpoint where the five of them meet, and then they spiral out from there in a complex Venn diagram of relationships that would require an extra two or three dimensions to make sense of.

The closest representation might be a mandala, Celtic knot, or a tessellated figure. Something intricate, where the individual threads are woven so tightly it's hard to differentiate them.

This is a character study. Whoever said a character couldn't be five people?

*****

  _O_ _thala_

Everything is coming together and coming apart. Gwenllian. The caves. Artemus appearing. Persephone vanishing.

Blue has always had more family than she knows what to do with, but there's only one person she wants right now, and that's her mother. 300 Fox Way is far too busy for her to get Maura alone.

She gets Maura alone anyway, and asks the other question.

"What if he's not my true love?"

Maura gives her the other answer. "Would it change what you've seen?"

Blue leans into her mother's shoulder, lets her mother's arms go around her. Her eyes are too dry.

 

_Nauthiz_

The more Adam thinks about Ronan arranging for his rent to be paid, the more conflicted he feels. On one level it annoys him, because he's been trying not to need or ask for anyone’s help.

On a whole other level it's comforting, especially in the face of everything else that's uncertain. Ronan has given him a home, a place of his own. It's like a hug, except that Ronan doesn't do hugs. He does rough one-armed squeezes on occasion, which to be fair constitute most of the hugs Adam gets anyway.

He’s grown used to—fond of—those hugs.

 

_Fehu_

When Blue's mother goes missing is when Gansey finally realizes he can't just throw money at every problem and expect it to be fixed.

(This goes double for anything involving Gwenllian.)

He feels like he keeps saying exactly the wrong things to Blue. Not the sort of conduct anyone should expect from their true love.

"Don't expect any of us to be able to help you," Noah says the one time Gansey attempts to raise the subject.

"Lack of experience?"

"No, we just want to watch you look stupid," Noah says, and goes incorporeal when Gansey tries to elbow him.

 

_Gebo_

Now that his death is real to the others, Noah can get on with what comes after it. Too much of _after_ revolves around dying for his liking. Gansey’s predicted death and the way that it haunts Blue, even when she draws back from kissing him and gives him a surprised smile.

“That’s better,” she says.

Noah tries to ignore the feeling she’s using him for practice.

It’s harder to talk to Gansey. Gesturing at himself and saying, “Death isn’t the handicap it used to be,” nets him only a distracted nod.

And he keeps losing time in eleven-minute spans.

 

_Laguz_

Ronan is finding it easier to flow with whatever happens these days, even if it’s more bizarre than his (admittedly reasonably bizarre) everyday life.

Sometimes he wishes he could throw himself at the changes and stop them in their tracks, but they are what they are.

Sometimes he wishes he could go into his dreams and take his friends with him, away from prophecies and caves and sleepers. Away from the waking world.

Mostly, though, he lets himself be water instead of obdurate stone, and accept what’s happening, and move with it.

It doesn’t mean he has to _like_ it.

*****

O children, the sleepers wake.

The mirrors reflect only each other; the Ouija board says only _no, no, no_.

Cards and runes and clouded crystal ball.

The broken doors are open; will you stand or will you fall?

The pendulum swings, reflecting the future in its facets, but swinging down only one inexorable path.

Mother, aunt, cousin, daughter: all the collected wisdom of one family, all looking in the same direction. Even those who now are lost have seen this coming, in tea leaves and dark waters.

( _One for sorrow, two for mirth. Five for..._ )

O children, the sleepers wake.


End file.
